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The scorpion's sting : antislavery and the coming of the Civil War

Explores the Civil War and the anti-slavery movement, specifically highlighting the plan to help abolish slavery by surrounding the slave states with territories of freedom and discusses the possibility of what could have been a more peaceful alternative to the war.

Details

Introduction: at stake --
"Like a scorpion girt by fire" --
The right versus the wrong of property in man --
Race conflict --
The wars over wartime emancipation --
Epilogue: Harriet Beecher Stowe and her British sisters.

Abstract:

An award-winning historian illuminates the strategy for ending slavery that precipitated the crisis of civil war.Read more...

Reviews

Editorial reviews

Publisher Synopsis

"With the direct, forthright style that marks his writings, Oakes makes clear that the secessionists were right when they claimed that the rise of the Republican party foretokened the death of slavery if they remained in the Union...If any reader still questions whether the Civil War was about slavery, this book overcomes all doubts." -- James McPherson "Incisive, imaginative, surprising, completely original-everything that one would expect from the most eminent historian of emancipation." -- Eric J. Sundquist "In clear prose and with searing insight, James Oakes recovers the moral urgency and strategic vision behind the Republican drive to undermine the slave system. A work of great depth and empathy." -- Alan Taylor "A fitting follow-up to Oakes's game-changing study, Freedom National, shedding further light on how the antislavery movement laid the groundwork for emancipation." -- Douglas L. Wilson "In four swift, clear strokes, James Oakes has rewritten the history of emancipation in the United States." -- Allen C. Guelzo "James Oakes has brilliantly reframed our understanding of the Civil War. It is no surprise that Oakes is the first scholar to recover the meaning of the scorpion's sting; his close readings of political documents, delivered in his lucid, elegant style, are virtually unrivaled." -- John Stauffer "An in-depth look at political attitudes toward slavery at the brink of the Civil War."Read more...

"Explores the Civil War and the anti-slavery movement, specifically highlighting the plan to help abolish slavery by surrounding the slave states with territories of freedom and discusses the possibility of what could have been a more peaceful alternative to the war."@en

"Introduction: at stake -- "Like a scorpion girt by fire" -- The right versus the wrong of property in man -- Race conflict -- The wars over wartime emancipation -- Epilogue: Harriet Beecher Stowe and her British sisters."@en